Dr. David Webb DF 26

Tuesday, 3:00-4:50 PM x34245

Anthropology 021: LABORATORY IN PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Course Description: This laboratory course is designed as a companion to Anthropology 020: Introduction to Physical Anthropology. As such, it generally follows the syllabus for ANT 020 which must either be taken concurrently or have been taken previously.

Objectives:

1. To give students hands-on experience with the materials and methods which physical anthropologists use. These include fossil and recent skeletal material, anthropometric tools and techniques, and human variation and genetic analysis.

2. To acquaint students with basic primate and human anatomy.

3. To give students the chance to feel what it's like to be physical anthropologists by developing and performing their own research projects.

Outline:

I. Lab Tour/Scientific Method

II. Current Research/Special Topic

III. Taxonomy

IV. Genetics

V. Excavation/Taphonomy

VI. Post-cranial Anatomy

VII. Cranial Anatomy

VIII. Forensics

IX. The Missing Link

X. Human Variation/Anthropometry

XI. Individual Projects

Course Requirements: Each laboratory exercise will be equally weighted, except for the individual projects which will take four lab periods and be worth two regular labs. It is generally not possible to make up a missed lab, since the equipment must be set up beforehand and be put away immediately afterward to make room for other courses which also meet in the lab. Therefore, attendance is important in the sense that you cannot do the lab if you are not there. All members of the class are expected to "volunteer" to be subjects for other students' individual projects. For this reason, all individual projects must be approved by the instructor well before the project begins.